


Mediocre People

by verulams (finnlogan)



Category: Borderlands (Video Games), Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, British style University, Everyone Has Issues, Films, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Porn With Plot, Romance, Slow Burn, Therapy, Threesome - F/M/M, Trans Rhys (Borderlands), radio shows
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:00:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28842018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finnlogan/pseuds/verulams
Summary: Jack and Nisha want to make a movie, and they certainly can't back out now they've mentioned it live on their radio show. And they certainly can't do it without Rhys, who is somehow the only competent one. Except he isn't competent, is he?Nisha and Jack need to learn some stuff, sure, and that's fine, and all, but Rhys has to learn that love won't save him. And that's the hardest thing he's ever had to do."After all," says Jack. "We're notmediocre, are we?"
Relationships: Handsome Jack/Nisha (Borderlands), Handsome Jack/Nisha/Rhys (Borderlands), Handsome Jack/Rhys (Borderlands), Nisha/Rhys (Borderlands)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 10





	1. Rotting

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Welcome to Mediocre People, where everyone and their mother has mental health issues, and they love each other anyway.

Rhys hums to himself, pulling apart the stitches with a seam ripper. The radio thrums in the background, Jack and Nisha chatting shit over a soft layer of jazz. He tunes in and out as they talk about a film they had liked. That was rare, for them. They rarely liked the movies they reviewed.

Rhys hums a little louder, and shifts to the other fabric. It’s a piece of denim, and he snips away at it. He itches at the scars on his chest, then tuts at himself when his scissors snag. “Honestly, Rhys. You’ll never make your video on time at this rate.” He pops his tongue and then runs it over his front teeth.

Annoying, as usual, to be behind on both uni work and video work. It’s all work, anyway, Rhys supposes. He wonders when that happened. It hadn’t always been work, right? The fashion stuff had been… fun. He frowns at himself. It was still fun. It was definitely… still fun.

He steals a glance at the clock, by accident. He’d make a promise to never look at the clock this late because that was when he got his best work done, and inevitably when he’d have to stop working to sleep. Sleep was boring. Rest was a missed opportunity.

He groans, resting the metal of his prosthetic against his face. It feels cold to touch, so he has to resist the urge to put it on his scars. For some reason, it felt… dishonest, to soothe that itch. He’d worked hard enough to get those scars, after all. And then there’s a thunderous shrill squeal, a noise caused by-

Rhys stares up at the ceiling of his 5-bed student house, glaring at Fiona’s room above him. She was still up, then. He glances back at the clock. It still reads 1:15 AM. She treads on the creaky floorboard again, and it rips through the room, careening like a ricocheted bullet. It hurts his brain. He whips out his phone, sends a very pointed message on the group chat, and then goes back to staring at the ceiling. 

His phone buzzes on the desk, the floorboard creaks again, and he sighs. “Shut up, Rhys,” reads the message. “I’ve been able to hear your shitty radio show for an hour.”

And whatever. It wasn’t that loud, anyway. Rhys shifts his attention back to the murmur of the app. It’s still Jack and Nisha.

“I’m smart,” Jack says, “I can understand what the kids want. Buzzfeed and stuff, you know. Making a movie that people will uh, stan, that can’t be difficult.”

A short pause. “You think making a Marvel movie is... easy? Those things are cash-cows, Jack, they know how to make money from an audience-”

“Well yeah. I’m not dumb. You just act in front of a green screen and add in CGI blue aliens with big tits.”

“We’re live on air, you know. People are gonna hold you to this.”

“Course they won’t. Nobody listens to this show. Hey, if you listen to us, tweet us. The students union are dying to get people engaged. And, and, hey. If you think we should make a movie, get involved! We’re smart. And hot.”

“People aren’t going to know you’re joking, Jack.” Nisha leans over the microphone with a wide grin, and the audio is amplified and rustling. “Hey, speaking of, if you want to get involved, you can tweet and DM Jack at @handsomejack6969, and we can make this dream a reality.”

Rhys has to check wildly that he’s not getting a phone call before he realises it’s Jack’s phone making the noise. “Hey, who cares. Let’s make a movie. Also, that’s 4000% a privacy violation,” he protests, but the smile is unmistakable in his voice. Rhys smiles too.

“Sure, it is. We’ve been told not to talk about anyone’s tits before too, and that hasn’t stopped us-”

Jack’s phone buzzes again. “Well, no, but you just mentioned it again, so we’re basically in double hell now.”

“Weren’t we already in double hell?” Nisha says, drily. “The students union- hey, students union reps, if you’re listening, thanks for nothing- they don’t give us any money.” And that much is true. Rhys’ channel is about the only one that’s student-run that’s ever been retweeted by the university, and he’s certainly never been given any money.

“Course they don’t,” Jack grins and then makes a noise of vague distress as his phone buzzes again. “They’re not listening, either. They’re playing, like. Lacrosse, or something.”

Nisha’s got a smile in her voice when Jack audibly unlocks his screen. “Hey, look at that! Jack’s got some attention! Who wants to get involved with the movies, Jack?”

Jack chokes a dull noise. “Uh, these are all from Tinder.” Rhys thins his lips.

“Oh,” Nisha says, sly. “Well, that brings us to our next segment, doesn’t it?”

“It does!” Jack’s chair creaks. “So, next we’ll be- Hey, Nisha, why don’t you tell all four of our loyal listeners about our next segment while I reply to some of these messages?”

“Alright, Casanova, let’s not get too excited, because we’re going to be talking about unlikely pairings now, and Jack is gonna love this one because we’re talking about Beauty and the Beast-”

“Look,” Jack laugh, and there’s a crack that he can only assume is Jack’s phone crashing onto the desk, “I’m just saying, if I was the Beast, I wouldn’t be chill with sticking to one boring, human woman-”

Rhys closes the app as his bedtime reminder goes off. He shoots another message to the group chat and apologises for the noise even though he knows everyone else is asleep. He fires off another message: “I’ll take back my apology if I hear you again, Fiona.”

The floorboard creaks again, and Rhys has the good faith to laugh, at least.

Rhys goes to sleep.

He dreams about fame.

* * *

He rolls out of bed for his lecture 20 minutes late, so by the time he arrives, everyone else has already gone in. He sidles through the door and places himself firmly in a seat at the side of the room. He sighs and tries to focus.

The lecture is quiet, and Professor Hodges is off their game. It’s moments like this that make him feel like a Business and Management degree was a mistake. He frowns at the board in front of him and shoves his pen in his mouth.

His marketing modules were usually slightly more interesting than the accounting ones, but there wasn’t a lot anyone could do when the lecture started at 8.30 in the morning, and only 20% of students turned up. Rhys taps his metal fingers on his notepad. He scrolls through his notifications on his phone and notices a few from the radio show. They’d changed their name twice already this month, but currently, it was Borderlands. He flicks them away. Nothing important. 

Hodges drones on and on, and eventually, gives up. 

“Right, okay, not one of you is listening to me, and there’s…” Hodges glances at their watch and then squints up at the old clock on the wall. Rhys glances up from his phone as a DM comes in. He locks it and tries to pay attention. “There are only 15 minutes left of this lecture, and you’ve managed to tolerate it for an hour and 45 minutes, so I’m calling it a day. Enough. Begone, youthful souls, who apparently literally cannot get out of bed before 10. Don’t forget the journal for Thursday, everybody, I’m expecting you to keep up with that!”

“Thanks, Hodges!” calls a guy in the back, and Rhys laughs under his breath when Hodges sighs. 

“You’re welcome, Josh. You’re welcome. Now, shoo. I’ve not got another class until this afternoon, so I’m going to get an extremely long lunch.” Hodges folds up the papers littered over the desk. “Oh, and Rhys?” Hodges calls.

Rhys freezes in place.

“Very good work on your last paper. A case study into a film’s fashion accuracy and marketing certainly isn’t anything I’ve seen before in this course, but it was enlightening. I look forward to hearing more about it in feedback.”

Rhys’ hand sheepishly grabs at the back of his hair. “Thanks, Hodges. I, uh, worked really hard on it!”

Hodges smiles and looks at him through faintly dirty glasses. “As hard as you work on every paper, I hope, including for the-” Hodges clears their throat, “for the accounting modules, which, might I remind everyone, are compulsory!

Rhys smiles. Hodges was a good lecturer, and it was usually pretty fun to listen to them. “Yes, Hodges. Definitely.”

Hodges smiles again, wider this time. “Glad to hear it. Now, shoo. The next class doesn’t come in for fifteen minutes, but I certainly don’t want to face Professor Green’s wrath, do you?”

Rhys scoots out of the room with his laptop clutched in his flesh hand, and his bag grasped in the metal one. Setting them down on the study space directly outside of the lecture hall, he shoves the laptop into his backpack and bites at his lip. Fiona hadn’t been in his lecture. She was punctual, and she definitely hadn’t been in the class because her hats were noticeable a mile off.

He opens up Twitter on his phone, just to see if there was any life- and yeah, there she was. She’d been up late on a call with a friend he didn’t recognise when Rhys’d gone to bed. There’s another photo of her with a smile. That was at… he blinks. 3 am. No wonder that she hadn’t been in the lecture.

He checks his calendar and reminds himself of the accounting lecture he should probably attend, purely because Hodge’s seemed to know something he didn’t about quite how important those lectures were, and Hodge’s was rarely wrong-

Another DM comes through. “Hey, Rhys! Shooting you over another message because I forgot to mention, I’m also free today. We can talk whenever. Lemme know.”

He-

What?

He opens the conversation, and… and there she is. Nisha’s face, he recognises the profile picture to be of both of their faces squeezed together. It’s been cropped funny because all he can see of Jack is a blue eye and an arched eyebrow. Nisha’s face takes up the rest. The message is there, plain as day.

“Hey, Rhys! Me and Jack (@handsomejack6969) have decided to make a short movie, and we’ve noticed your channel! We want to work with you. I’m gonna be around after my law lectures in the Max Building at 3 pm on Monday. Let me know if you’re down.”

Rhys locks his phone without replying and thinks that through. He listens to their show, sure. But working with them? That’d… that’d almost be a downgrade for Rhys. Rhys was bound for greatness, at least in the sense that he was already featured on the Haven University Wikipedia. He was in the alumni section, and he hadn’t even graduated yet.

Rhys squints. But then again… he’d been bored. He never gets anywhere, expands his engagement by maybe 10% a month, and he’s… tired. He’s tired of being bored and boring, and he’s tired of-

Well. Who knows. Rhys thought a lot of stuff that didn’t necessarily make the business cut. That was why he was at university, after all, even if he had come to it several years later that everyone else on his course. Fiona was his age, and Vaughn was a little bit older, but… Well. He should ask them, really. When it came down to it, Rhys very rarely knew his own brain. He knows himself well enough to notice that, at least.

He shoves a note in his calendar to respond and moves onto his next lecture.

* * *

Rhys sighs and rots in the space between his ears. There are lectures with Hodges, and there’re lectures with Mandy, and there’re lectures with a million other different professors that Rhys somehow still didn’t know the name of. There are seminars and tutorials, and sometimes when he goes back home, he feels like he’s done nothing for weeks.

It’s not that he’s… bored, it’s that somehow, the universe seemed to be coming together to make everything bland. Rhys was meant to be famous, that much he definitely knew for sure. After all of the shit that he’d gone through trying to figure out who he was, he’d ended up here, with a stable sense of identity and absolutely no sense of anything he was meant for. 

It’s just that Rhys, and he acknowledges it as he sighs, was meant for fame and money. He just couldn’t… figure it out. Which was why he was studying the business degree, at the end of the day. If he couldn’t have fame, he could have money. He buries his head in a book, in the middle of the green space outside the library.

That, at least, was something he could grab, something he could make sense of.

He stares up at the sky, squinting against it. It’s blue, which even now strikes him as a terrible thing. What if the sky hadn’t wanted to be blue? Or worse, what if the sky had spent all its life trying to be blue? What if it had worked so hard to get that way, and people assumed that’s just how it’d always been? 

...Seems a little bullshitty, he scoffs to himself. The sky was just real. It was just how it was.

He stares down at the book and doesn’t read it. The words slur into the next, and the meaning of whatever awful Economics textbook this was is lost on him.

He startles as a rush of orange slides past him, and as he stares after it, it whirls around and faces him. Rhys smiles. It’s Captain, the campus cat. Rhys makes little noises at it and delights when Captain wanders over to him. “Hello!” He’s overjoyed. Captain was a good cat. He- 

“Wait,” Rhys murmurs, turning around to grab at his backpack. He kept little treats in there somewhere, and he digs around desperately. This was the whole reason he kept them in there, after all, especially since Captain had been introduced to campus the same year he’d joined Haven. He’s only used managed to use them once before, and that had been a rushed exchange. He’d nearly missed a lecture for Captain. “Ah!” He brandishes the packet, whipping it out from the very bottom. “It’s a bit squished,” he confides in the cat, “Sorry! I hope you like them anyway.”

Captain swirls his tail around Rhys’ leg and makes a funny noise. Rhys laughs, and rips open the bag. “Here you go, Captain.”

Rhys does not read the rest of his book, but by the time Captain is done with his treats, Rhys has decided it wasn’t that important anyway.

Captain slinks off, and Rhys stares at the sky.

He feels, abruptly, like he’s waiting for something. He just doesn’t know what.

* * *

When he arrives at the table they’re hoarding in the study space, Sasha is crowing about the new roller skates she’d bought. She speaks loudly, booming enough to be heard over the crush of people around them. Yvette is nodding, sage enough that he might assume she knew anything about rollerskates, and Vaughn taps his leg as he tries to tell Sasha it’d been a bad investment because the trend would be over soon. As usual, Fiona is looking at her phone, but she’s the one that glances up when he clears his throat.

“Oh, hey, Rhys!” She elbows Sasha, who quiets mid-sentence. “Scoot up.”

“I have a dilemma,” he immediately announces.

“Ever the drama queen,” smiles Yvette. “What’s happened this time? Misplaced a sequin on one of your blouses?”

“You know that’s not the kind of fashion I like, stop it.” Rhys sours and then stretches out his limbs as best he can under the small table. “Why the small table today, anyway?”

Fiona shoots a glance at Vaughn. “Someone missed the usual ones.”

“The freshers took the big ones,” Vaughn grins, unbothered. His smile is as comforting as it is wide. “What’s the dilemma?”

“Well!” Rhys slaps his hand onto the table, only to realise a little too late that it’s plastic, not the thick wood of some of the other tables, and so the sound thunders around the room when his metal hand meets it, and everyone is looking, and he can’t bring himself to-

Rhys breathes, and the room resumes its noise.

He clears his throat. “Well,” he repeats and puts his hands in his lap this time. Sasha sniggers. “Well, actually, I had an offer to do a short film.”

“Oh, that’s… exciting?” Sasha guesses. 

“Mm,” Rhys prompts when she bites something back. “But… but what?”

“Well,” she shrugs, “Do you need another project that you don’t want to do?”

Rhys frowns and crosses his legs. “Who says I don’t wanna do it?”

Yvette frowns, and Fiona tilts her head. “You did, when you said it was a dilemma,” Fiona says, cracking her knuckles.

“Well, yes. I suppose. But it’s with-” Rhys pauses. “You know that radio show I like-”

As if prompted by a vast auto-cue, they all groan. “Yes, Rhys,” they chorus.

Rhys hacks out a startled laugh. “What, have I mentioned it before?”

“Only every day of your life,” Vaughn says, loose, easy. It’s like none of this is important. Maybe that’s what he likes: the vague sense that these lives, their lives, perhaps nothing hinged on them. Maybe they weren’t necessary. Maybe that’s why he feels like he’s rotting. Rhys blinks when Vaughn keeps talking. “Come on, Rhys, everyone knows you love it.”

“Well,” he mumbles, “Yes, I guess. But-”

Fiona sips from her water bottle. “What’s the dilemma, then?”

“I don’t know whether to go to meet her. Nisha wants to meet Monday and-” He starts.

And it hits him all at once. With the rot in his brain and the ache in his guts, Rhys makes the decision. On a whim, he decides to stick with it. At least it would make something enjoyable, maybe put him half an inch closer to fame than he was before. There is no other choice: he rots, or he acts. Those were his options. Nisha Kadam might have given him a way out of stagnation.

Rhys frowns. “The dilemma? There isn’t one. I’m gonna help them make the short film.”

Yvette blinks at him. “O….kay, I’m gonna ignore that and suggest that when we all get home tonight, we order from the pizza place down the street from Ellie’s house-”

He realises he has no idea what he’s meant to be helping with. “I’m gonna meet Nisha,” he amends, but nobody is listening.

He was gonna do it.


	2. A Great Coiled Serpent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhys meets Nisha, Rhys gets berated, Rhys meets Jack.
> 
> These things always happen so _quickly _.__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I hope you like this chapter, which is where THE FUN BEGINS. anyway. hope u enjoy!

“So,” Nisha taps her fingers on the table. It’s a sharp noise, and now that he’s sitting down, he can feel it reverberate through his arms. The flesh one feels it as a dull thrum, but the metal one carries it all the way up the casing. It twitches his spine. “You’re Rhys, right?”

Rhys takes a split second to gather himself before responding. “Yep! Yes, that’s me. I’m Rhys. And you’re Nisha,” he beams and then holds out his hand.

She stares at it for a second before twitching out a smile and shaking it. Her hands don’t feel as cold as he’d expected. For some reason, she seems like she would be chilly. “That’s right. I’m Nisha.”

They sit in the Max Building study space on Monday, at lunch, and Rhys feels his stomach growl as Nisha opens her mouth, so he smiles sheepishly. “Sorry,” he mutters as Nisha very obviously fails to hide a smirk.

“Don’t be,” she says and drums her fingers again. The brown of them against the white table makes her look highly contrasted. “You know,” she tilts her head, “We were beginning to think you wouldn’t respond. We didn’t get your message until Thursday.”

Rhys blinks. “Yeah, I… sorry, I was busy. Sorry.” He shifts in his chair.

“Don’t be, it’s fine,” Nisha repeats. Everything about that statement is fine, but there’s still something of a snake to her, a python, recursive and interconnected with herself. Rhys gets the feeling Nisha is as complex as they come, and- she cracks her knuckles. And she was hot.

Rhys allows himself that because her eyes are piercing, and even sat down, she’s tall. Her boots are well-worn, and her shirt is ripped at the side. Her sunglasses and phone sit on the table, somehow as effortless as she was. It’s bizarre, almost, that she should come across that way, because on the radio-

Rhys clears his throat, and Nisha grins widely. On the radio, she hadn’t come across like that. She’d clearly noticed he was absorbed. Licking her lips, she-

Jesus, Rhys, get a hold of yourself. This was technically a business meeting and-

“Nervous, aren’t you?” She says, and she seems completely sincere when Rhys looks up and gawps at her.

He coughs. “I… yes? I wasn’t sure what to expect. You didn’t mention what the movie’s about…”

Nisha squints at him. “Have you met Jack before?” She asks, abrupt. “He mentioned something about you, but he might’ve got it from your videos.”

Rhys frowns and tries to- tries to swallow whatever sense of ‘god-she’s-hot’ that’s now simmering under his brain. Women who were demanding were... hot. So were men who told him what to do, actually, as well. Demanding, in general, was hot.

He crashes into thoughts about the fact that technically Nisha was just a- a potential business partner, even if she was hot, and even if Rhys feels like he’s known her since the start of their radio show, and even if Rhys thinks she’s hot, and even if-

Nisha grins at him and taps a finger slowly on the table.

Rhys swallows again. “Have I met Jack before? I don’t think so, no.” He returns, and his voice is a little croaky.

“Right,” she says, drawing out the vowel. “Okay, how about we talk business?”

“Yes!” Rhys claps his hands on the table, as gentle as he can manage while still getting the point across. It’s a very delicate art, his arm, and it wouldn’t do to slam it down again.

“Oh, actually, before we do,” Nisha seems to zoom in on the casing of his arm, eyes faintly narrowed, “Is that a Hyperion arm?” she asks. 

Rhys has once again lost control of the conversation.

“Uh,” he mumbles. “Yeah. Why?”

She snorts a tight laugh. “Jack did his internship with them. He’s going to want to show off, I warn you.” Rhys frowns, and Nisha shrugs, tapping her boot on the floor. “Don’t worry. He’ll be… well. He’ll be exactly as he always is.”

“That’s ominous,” Rhys blurts before he can stop himself. He crunches his fingers against his prosthetic’s metal casing and winces.

Nisha laughs, tone bright. Leaning back, she drums her fingers on the table again. “Yeah! It is. He’s not all bad, though, it was his idea to get you involved. Something about clout and skills. Apparently,” she pops it on her tongue, “You have both.”

Rhys doesn’t flush. He doesn’t. He absolutely doesn’t flush. “Thanks,” and then shouts at himself, at the part of his lizard brain that was telling him that ‘this-woman-hot’ was reason enough to act like a baby- He clears his throat. “Business?” He tries. Anything to steer this back away from the way Nisha was eyeing him-

“Yes, right.” She crosses her legs and leans back again. Rhys hadn’t noticed how far she’d leant in. “So. You make videos, right? About fashion?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, and-

God, Rhys swallows his tongue and then coughs. Good christ. 

Nisha looks faintly surprised for a second before smiling a shark smile.

Rhys- “Yeah, I make youtube videos on fashion in media, like- like, you know, Bridgerton?” He tries, hopeful to change all of this and come across as even the slightest bit more dignified. 

“No,” she says, slowly, still smiling widely. 

“It’s on Netflix, and it’s got this really awful- well, it doesn’t matter. I did a video on it, got a couple of hundred thousand views.”

She stretches. “And you… know about scripting, video editing, filming, that sort of stuff?”

He blinks. “If you mean like… You know, the basics of making content, then yeah! I know about it. Uh-”

“Good,” she murmurs, then glances down at her phone. When she looks back up, her eyes are heavy for a second, and she repeats herself: “Good, well. I guess Jack was right, we could have a pretty good partnership, couldn’t we?”

“C-could we?” Rhys thinks of all the times Fiona had called him a simp. He squares his shoulders. “I think-” he coughs, his voice had come out too deep, disaster, disaster, ring the bells because death was here, or it may as well be. He coughs again. “I think we would need to discuss terms, and… and the kind of things I’d actually be responsible for?”

Nisha smiles, less like a shark and more like a big cat. It’s a slow smile, spread across her face. “Well, consider it a… credited teaching gig,” she says, slowly. “You teach us to make a movie, we all get famous, or-”

“Famous?” Rhys returns, incredulous. “You’re doing this to get famous?”

Nisha shakes her head. “Jack’s idea. I think he’s… very idealistic for someone so… well. For Jack.”

Rhys opens and closes his mouth and tries to process the stream of bizarre information that this conversation had been. 

“And hey,” she yawns, stretching languidly. The blue light filtering from the spotlights above them shadows her, faintly alien in how it turns her pale and grey. “If nothing else, we’ll be big names on campus. BNOC’s, you know? And that-” she stops, eyes him seriously. “That’s Jack’s idea, again.” She flicks her hair behind her ear. “He’s fine, by the way.”

“Is he?” Rhys asks, faintly, even though he hadn’t asked if Jack was okay in the first place. The conversation is a freight train, a trolley problem, a million miles away from him and abstracted and yet somehow happening to him right now-

“Yes,” she says, firmly. “He’s fine. I-”

She stops, looks down, and then at Rhys. She groans, and flops back, just a little, like one of those modern dancers you sometimes saw, where their whole body clicked, for just a moment.

“Right,” she sighs, “I’m sorry, I think we got off on the wrong foot there.” A deep breath. “I mentioned who I am; I’m Nisha Kadam, blah blah, whatever. You’re Rhys. Is that what I should call you?” She smiles, “Rhys… Strongfork?”

Rhys releases a breath. “No, I- It’s a joke, that name. A play on… on Reese Witherspoon, you know?”

She smiles again and huffs a laugh. “So, I should just call you Rhys, then.”

“Rhys Lynsey,” Rhys offers. “It’s… well, it’s my name. And I guess, since you want me to help, you wanna know a little about my skills?”

Nisha nods encouragingly, and Rhys smiles. “Okay,” he says, and feels the conversation ease back into normality. “I can do that.”

* * *

  
“I don’t know,” Rhys grinds out into his hands. “I have no idea!”

Vaughn rubs his back sympathetically. “Are you gonna do it?”

“I don’t know!” Rhys wails, “It was just bizarre and weird, and she was hot!”

He burrows his face into his fingers and makes an awful noise. When he finally glances up, Sasha is now sitting in the chair next to him. “She was hot? I thought you were gay, Rhys. Also, hey, guys.”

Rhys frowns at her, whipping his head up. “That’s- I didn’t say that? When did I say that?” He hadn’t said that. He wasn’t gay, anyway. He was just… the kind of bisexual that strongly preferred men. Not the same. He splutters. “That’s bi erasure!” He cough-laughs because Sasha was bi too, and they both knew-

Sasha frowns right back, smile nipping at the corners of her mouth, “No, it’s not, you always tell me you’re gay-”

“That’s a shorthand.”

Sasha grins at him. “Anyway, so, moving on: this woman. Nisha. What was she like?”

“I…” Rhys hedges, pressing his fingers together. “I don’t want to tell you. You’ll think I’m weird for thinking she’s hot.”

Vaughn grimaces. “That’s not a good sign. It’s not gonna be a repeat of the Vasquez situation, is it?” He continues to rub circles into Rhys’ back despite his rubbish words, and Rhys groans again. “Sorry, sorry, I forget we’re not meant to bring him up. Is he…?”

Rhys riles and twists around to look at his traitor-friend, his friend who was a mean-spirited, traitorous, dick of a man, and frowns. As hard as he can. “Is he what Vaughn? Is the guy who graduated, ghosted me, and with whom I had an awful, complicated, and probably damaging relationship for a year, is he what?”

Vaughn coughs. “Relevant, I was going to say, but I guess that kind of answers the question.”

Rhys takes a long moment to study him- he seems earnest enough. Fair play. “It doesn’t, actually,” he eventually sighs. “I’m genuinely over him. I just… I’m a bit stressed.”

Sasha nods, and silence falls, just for a moment. The hubbub of the study space around them - he’d been careful to clarify he was not going to the Max Building again anytime soon - is tremendous, but not aggravating. It sits between the frets of his spinal column and speaks of familiarity.

“Ri-i-ight,” she says, slowly, when nobody else talks. “So, you’re not taking the gig, then?”

Rhys shifts and bites his lip. He leans down and rests his chin on the edge of the table. “Can I- Can I just say, before you get mad at me, that I’m not actually sure-”

“Oh, god, this is another-”

“No, no!” Rhys protests. “It’s not another Vasquez! I’m careful, I’m careful, it’s not gonna be anything other than a business thing-” 

“Oh, so you are doing it?”

“Also, no!” he cries. Silly to be this upset over a gig that can’t be paid very well-

Sasha seems to read his mind as she always did. “D’you know how well it’s paid?”

Rhys sighs and grabs at the back of his neck. “No,” he sulks. “If I knew it was paid well, I’d definitely do it. Seems an easy thing to put on your job applications, right?”

“Sure,” Vaughn says, cutting in above Sasha’s dubious frown. “Can’t have too much experience. What? Sasha, stop looking at me like that, I didn’t say he should do it-”

Rhys glances up from the table. “Why do you think I shouldn’t do it, Sasha?”

Sasha has a complicated look on her face that Rhys can’t quite read. “Well, because it sounds like it’s another Va-”

“Stop! Right there, stop. Not another Vasquez situation. Every time you all compare it to the Vasquez situation, I become more likely to take the opportunity and less likely to drop it.”

“Very adult of you,” she says, mildly.

“Thanks,” he spits, and then groans. “Look, I’ll just tell you. She was hot, and a little weird, and I called her ma’am accidentally, and we had to start the conversation over again because I was really distracted by her… Well, her everything. She was just… present, you know? Like she was talking about Jack, and then she noticed my arm, and she was suddenly saying ‘oh, Jack did an internship with the company that made it’ and I was just- I was reeling.”

Vaughn looks vaguely sympathetic. “You called her ma’am accidentally?”

“Yes!” Rhys’ groan may as well be a way cry against the passage of time for all the good it does.

“And… what’s the gig?” Sasha tries.

“Oh,” he cocks his head. “It’s a teaching gig. I’d show them how to, you know. Use hardware, software, scripting. You know the kind of stuff. You’ve read my scripts.”

“That’s it?”

Rhys runs his teeth over his tongue. Suddenly, there’s a guy with a beard walking past, and Rhys has to instinctively fight the urge to look away. It is, of course, not Vasquez. Never is. “Uh,” he starts, eventually, when it becomes apparent that a little too long has passed for him to respond to the question he hadn’t been paying attention to. “What was the-?”

“Rhys, is that all you have to do?”

“Yeah!” He claps his hands down onto the table. “That’s all. Thinking about it, I should really take it. It would do me good to get out of routine, I think. Everything feels so much like work.”

Sasha tilts her head. She looks unconvinced. “You did choose to come to Haven-”

“Yes, I know. Didn’t expect to have to actually be a human person when I came to university though, did I?”

“But anyway,” Sasha continues as if he hadn’t spoken. “I don’t think that just because it’s easy, you should take it. It sounds like this Nisha person is a bit…”

“A bit what?” He asks. He’s genuinely curious at this stage because usually, Sasha was all about fun new stuff, which is why she’d taken up roller skating and- well. That was why Sasha was the way she was. 

She visibly cringes, then spits it out. “A bit… Vasquez-y.”

His brain splits into a memory of this exact conversation, the phrase weaponised and turned sour, an arrow in a quiver too sharp to be held. The last time they’d had this conversation, he’d listened to her. But really, Rhys is rotting, he’s sitting and turning in a microwave, waiting for it to heat him when nobody had pressed the button- He blinks out of it. “Right, I warned you,” Rhys retorts, “I have to do it now. I have to.”

“Rhys, don’t be a baby-”

“No no, I am nothing if not true to my word. I’m doing it.”

He whips out his phone. “I’ve thought about it,” he reads aloud as he types, “And I’m down! Let me know when I can meet you to talk about the details!”

“Rhys…” Vaughn mutters, patting his back once. “Is this a good idea?” 

“Sure, it is.” And hey, at least it’ll get him out of the house. Might even get him closer to fame. He itches at his scars and frowns at the screen. “Not sure why I expected an immediate response, but- oh,” a message pops up, as if on command.

“Hey, Rhys! Jack, here. Glad you liked Nisha ;) Our address is 70 Lynchwood, you’ll spot us easy, we’re at the edge of the park. Yellow house, can’t miss it. We can talk Friday if you want? 8 pm?”

Vaughn stares over his shoulder. “8 pm?” He asks, incredulous. “That’s… a bit late. Are you sure…?”

Rhys’ mouth twists and he shields the phone from Vaughn’s prying eyes. “Yeah! ‘Sides, it’s Jack. He’s always a bit… eccentric, plus-” Rhys tries, then thinks better of it. He’d been going to mention Jack’s voice, but that had been a Vasquez thing, and the comments would never stop coming, so he swerves. “Plus, 8 pm isn’t that late! We’ll probably just have a drink. It’ll be fine.”

Sasha makes a dull noise. “If you think he’s eccentric before you’ve even met him, I’m not sure that’s a good sign-”

“I’ve listened to that radio show enough times to know-”

“Yes, but he could be a lunatic-”

And eventually, the conversation shifts. They stop talking about Rhys, start talking about Sasha’s rollerskating, and the worry fades into the background. Easy peasy.

He’d meet with them, and he’d have a nice time, discuss the terms of the contract, and that’d be that. Simple. He’d go home, and he’d have a good time. Simple!

* * *

  
Friday comes around quickly. It speeds through him, and pretty soon he’s walking down Lynchwood Road, headed right to the bottom where he knows number 70 is. The streetlights flicker nervously as he walks past. 

The road is sloped, and it’s vaguely unsettling as he walks down the hill. Very briefly, the world feels darker than it did a second ago- the tarmac’s shapes are thrown into sharp relief, and he squints at the road for a minute.

He looks up, and the streetlight flickers back on.

“Don’t worry, Rhys,” he mutters to himself as he shakes out his shoulders. “Nothing to worry about.”

The door doesn’t have a number on it. It must be 70 because it’s at the edge of the park and sure enough, it looks like it was once painted bright yellow. The paint is peeling at the edge, though, and Rhys wonders whether their landlord knew about that.

He makes a dull noise to himself—nothing to worry about.

He shakes his shoulders again, flexes his hands - metal and otherwise - and then climbs up the step to the house. There’s- there’s no point worrying, he reminds himself. No point at all. Rhys was a big boy, and if this bizarre set of circumstances got him slightly closer to fame and money, then so be it.

Whatever.

He presses the doorbell and holds his breath anyway.

...nobody comes.

...Huh. 

He flips out his phone, heart rate ticking upwards. It was Friday, right? Yep, and it was 8.01 pm, so he was almost exactly on time. Very punctual. And it was- He’d said 70, and he’d said Lynchwood Road, which this was, and he’d said yellow, which this also was-

He looks up to check for a door number and is met with a face full of a barrel chest.

“Hey,” says a voice, mildly.

Rhys-

Oh, god. He slowly looks up, and there’s-

Oh, no. Not again. He’s got a sharp, angular face, and a broad chin which looks recently shaved. His eyebrows are arched, and he’s-

Oh, no. He's _hot._

Rhys clears his throat. “Hi,” he tries for cool. He hopes he hits the mark, but it’s hard to say because he now realises he’d been standing too close to the door, and up the step through the threshold, someone is leaning on the doorway, and his chest is directly in Rhys' face.

Good chest, he notes mildly. It was a good chest.

“You’re…” they clear their throat, and Rhys is struck with a memory. That’s Jack. Who else had he been expecting? 

Rhys splutters and steps back, off the step, his heart flies through his guts, and his body flies too, down, out, wherever. The point is he’s definitely not upright, and then there’s-

There’re arms around him. Jack- if it was Jack - grabs him and rights him, and when Rhys looks up, he’s grinning ear-to-ear.

When Rhys finally recovers, he’s still got a grin on his face. “Good start, Rhys. You are Rhys, right?” Before he can answer, Jack waves a hand and laughs. The noise rolls through his tummy. He feels warm, and his pulse still hasn’t quite calmed. “Who am I kidding, I know who you are! You, uh…” His face twitches. “You okay?”

Rhys blinks. “Uh, yeah. Just… oh man, I’m just recovering. You know how, uh. You know how it is.” He doubts, of course, that Jack does know how it is. Jack's likelihood of being caught from certain death by a handsome stranger on the handsome stranger’s doorstep is… close to nil.

Jack smiles and nods anyway. “Yeah, uh-huh, sure. Anyway, you wanna come in? Maybe catch your breath? We’ve got beer!” 

With that, Jack disappears inside.

And Rhys-

Well, first, he catches his breath. He calms his racing heart to a near acceptable level, and then he- well.

Rhys does what any man like Rhys would do, faced with the house of Jack and Nisha, and an offer to go inside.

Rhys goes in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! If you'd like to read more, please leave a comment if you can! I'd really appreciate it <3

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at [finnlogan](https://finnlogan.tumblr.com) for my main blog, or at [verulamfic](https://verulamfic.tumblr.com), where i am still taking fic requests.


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